There is a shift in political battlegrounds from parliament floors to pixels and T-shirts. The recent controversy involving stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra and a T-shirt featuring a dog relieving itself on the letters resembling "RSS" is not merely a tabloid distraction. It is a flashpoint in a deeper conflict over who owns the visual landscape of Indian politics.

When ministers threaten police action over clothing, we witness a clash between an increasingly homogenised, "saffronised" visual hegemony and rather irreverent and minuscule force of satire. Kamra’s T-shirt and the state’s disproportionate response underscore a critical reality: in a country where political imagery is becoming sacred, visual satire is a necessary act of democratic reclamation.

To understand why a T-shirt rattles the cages of power, we must look at the canvas. Over the last decade, Indian politics has undergone a visual transformation from diverse colours to increasing "saffronisation". Political imagery is fused with a sacred and hyper-nationalist tune that imagines a singular colour, a singular faith and propagates a rather single point agenda. The dominant machinery has curated a narrative of grandeur and purity that revolves around the power centres through an increasingly exclusionary mechanism. It elevates party symbols to the status of religious icons designed for worship, not critique. This monopoly creates a hypersensitive environment. When the background is aggressively and increasingly uniform, any deviation, especially one that is crude or humorous, stands out with blinding intensity.

In this broad context enters Kamra. Whether one finds his comedy tasteful is irrelevant; his political function is that of a visual disruptor. By juxtaposing the "sacred" acronym of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (or "PSS," as he playfully claimed) with the profane image of a peeing dog, he punctures the inflated seriousness of the dominant aesthetic. This should be seen in a spectrum where a similar and subtler display of T-shirt by Akash Banerjee, popularly known as Deshbhakt, where angry Hanuman becomes smiling and happy Hanuman.

This satire makes the high and mighty vulnerable. In a visual culture that demands we look up at leaders in reverence, satire forces us to look at them with scepticism and refuses to shut the critical eye. The messy, biological image of the dog can be seen as the antithesis of a powerful party’s curated grandeur – shocking and provocative. The swift threat of police action by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) proves the satire’s point: the power structures are brittle enough to be threatened by a T-shirt that resembles something else – a classic use of symbol. The visual shock is visceral and culturally moving that transforms a natural act of urinating into PSS as a blatant assault to one of the most powerful organisations in today’s world that forms the backbone of the party that rules the country.

Also read: Delhi BJP ‘Creates Awareness’ About SIR With Islamophobic Content

There is an irony in the controversy’s specifics. Kamra’s defence – that the text might read "PSS" – highlights the absurdity of policing visual interpretation. The state apparatus must now mobilise to decode typography on a comedian's chest. This ambiguity forces the state to ask what offends them, turning the whole idea of governance into a comedy club and further undermining the seriousness the machinery seeks to project.

As India’s political identity becomes increasingly singular, the diversity of the visual field shrinks. "Civil" dissent often gets swallowed by the noise, but visual satire cuts through. It speaks the language of an internet generation that consumes politics through symbols.

If we allow the "saffronisation" of our visual culture to go unchallenged, we accept a version of democracy where leaders are idols and symbols are off-limits. This is dangerous; a democracy without the right to mock is merely a monarchy in disguise.

Kamra’s T-shirt is, in isolation, a juvenile gag. But in context, it is a vital act of resistance. It asserts that in a diverse democracy, no symbol is too holy for irreverence. As the visual landscape is painted in broad strokes of reverence, we need the contrasting splashes of satire to remind us that politicians work for us – and sometimes, the only way to remind them is to let the dog out.

Suman Nath is a Political Anthropologist and teaches in Government General Degree College, Keshiary, West Bengal.

The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.